Monthly Meeting

Our meetings are held on the first Wednesday of each month (unless otherwise specified) at the Carlsbad Woman's Club, 3320 Monroe St. Carlsbad, CA 92008. This is on Monroe St. just south of Carlsbad Village Drive. We feature regular culture classes to learn about growing orchids first hand, as well as our monthly special guest speakers, who cover just about every imagined topic on orchid culture, breeding, hybridizing, judging, conservation, travel and more.

Gil HoWe are delighted to welcome back former POS President Dr. Gil Ho. Gil will be speaking about Stanhopeas, epiphytic orchids originating from Central and South America. The title of his presentation is "The Hybrids of Stanhopeas: Mixing it Up!"

Stanhopea is an unusual and interesting genus of very fragrant orchids comprised of 66 species and an increasing number of hybrids. Gil will review briefly Stanhopea orchids in general and then discuss in detail the thinking behind Stanhopea hybrids and their wonderful varieties, followed by an introduction of creative intergeneric hybrids with Stanhopeas and related genera. This should be an informative and fun talk!

Dr. Gil Ho is a practicing neurologist and has been growing orchids for enjoyment for many years and has a special interest in Stanhopeas, Lycastes, Paphiopedilum, although he grows a little of nearly every orchid genera. He has been active with orchids over the last 15 years and loves the chance to pass on his orchid interests and experiences to others.

This month’s plant table will be supplied by Alex Nadzan and will include a few of his own cattleya hybrids.

Tim CulbertsonPOS is pleased to welcome Tim Culbertson who will be sharing his presentation on “Laelia purpurata, the Queen of the Cattleyas”. Although large, these spectacular cattleyas grow well outside in Southern California, and with their myriad colors and a relatively unique blooming time, these are great plants for every collection, extending the blooming times in the Cattleya Alliance through July. With more and more Laelia purpurata clones and seedlings coming in from Brazil, and large grexes being bred in the United States, these stately, magnificent plants have seen a resurgence in popularity of late, and with good reason! By the end of this presentation, you will have a new appreciation of the range of color forms of Laelia purpurata and its hybrids, as well as an appreciation of their beautiful flowers and ease-of-growth. Tim will be providing a plant table of outdoor growing cattleyas, including many plants of Laelia purpurata in bud. He also will have additional plants for sale Read more »

George HatfieldWe are very fortunate and pleased to welcome George Hatfield as our speaker this month. George will be speaking on ‘Pendulous Cymbidiums’, a topic that he is eminently qualified to address as he has produced some of the best pendulous cymbidiums in the country. George is currently the President of the American Orchid Society and the owner of Hatfield Orchids, a Ventura County, CA based company, initiated in 2005 and focused on the development of high quality and award winning cymbidiums. Some of George’s beautiful cymbidiums can be viewed on his facebook page. George also will be providing the plant table this month.

George’s visit is being co-sponsored by POS and SDCOS. Accordingly, he will be speaking on Tuesday, April 4 to SDCOS on ‘Cymbidium Species’ in Balboa Park and all are welcome to attend. Please see the SDCOS website for details on time and location. Read more »

Our great society has had an influx of new members over the past year and many of them have asked for a culture class session. Our senior members are more than willing to answer any questions and for the March meeting we will have a panel session with four of our more experienced members answering questions related to orchid culture. Members on the panel are Lisa Humphreys, Merle Robboy, Jerry Spencer, and Helge Weissig. Please write down any questions you might have and bring them to the March meeting. The more questions we have, the more informative this session will be. As the saying goes: “There are no dumb questions in this world, never be afraid to ask”.

Lisa Humphreys is co-owner of Lico Orchids & Flowers and has been growing orchids since 1994, with an emphasis on species. She has been active in the orchid business since 1995, primarily selling hybrid orchids to florists. Lico Orchids specializes in orchids that are easy to grow and have long-lasting blooms.

Merle Robboy, MD, is a long-time member of our society with much experience in growing many plants of the orchid family. Dr. Robboy regularly presents all of the blooming flowers brought in by our members in the monthly “show and tell” sessions. His encyclopedic knowledge of most all of the plants and his detailed explanation of their geographical origin, culture needs, and genetic background make these sessions a favorite part of the meetings for many. Read more »

Fred ClarkeWe are pleased to host one of our most favorite and well-known speakers, Fred Clarke. Fred’s talk will focus on one of his primary passions, Cattleyas. The talk entitled ‘The Modern Cattleya’ will provide a detailed look at the species and latest developments in breeding and growing of this popular class of orchids. Attendees will learn about the best of the best in today’s breeding and the new directions hybrids are taking. Finally, Fred will cover the best practices for growing these remarkable plants.

Fred is a long time, generous supporter and life member of the Palomar Orchid Society. He has been growing orchids since 1977 and has been hybridizing for 35 of those years. With over 30 years as a professional grower and manager in the horticultural industry, Fred applies these skills at his orchid nursery, Sunset Valley Orchids, located in Vista, California, just north of San Diego. His nursery’s website has considerable information on plants for sale and many beautiful pics of his award winning orchids. He is a passionate orchid grower whose curiosity in orchids is broad and varied. Read more »

Thomas MirendaWe are delighted to welcome Thomas Mirenda of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., as our first speaker of 2017. Tom is a highly sought after orchid specialist who is very knowledgeable on many facets of orchid biology as well as on numerous classes of orchids. Tom will be speaking to us on “The Mysteries of Orchid Pollination” focusing on the various adaptations that orchids have developed as pollination strategies, including food, brood site, pollen, and mating deceptions, pseudo-copulation, co-evolution with pollinators, and other methods of species isolation.

For the last 16 years, Tom has been the Orchid Collection Specialist at the Smithsonian Institution, caring for and curating an extremely diverse collection of orchid species and hybrids from all over the world. He has been active in developing and producing huge educational exhibits using the collection plants and visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors. Read more »

We welcome back Tom Biggart to POS this month. Tom will be speaking on the culture of orchids of North Thailand. He will be discussing climatic issues and how to adapt these plants to our situation. The second part of his talk will highlight some of the orchid species that he encountered during his trip to Thailand.

Tom Biggart is the owner and head grower of Granite Hills Orchids in El Cajon, CA (a small town 15 miles east of San Diego). His nursery is a hobby-based business, which means he doesn’t make a living growing plants. It is more of a labor of love! Tom loves plants in general, and orchids are his main passion. He is very interested in encyclias and has a large collection of encyclia species and hybrids. The Australian cool growers are a current interest as well as Brazilian rupicolous laelias.

Tom is a retired elementary school teacher with orchids as his new students. He would love to have anyone stop by to talk orchids should one be in the San Diego area.

The past few years he and his wife, Neal, have gotten interested in ceramics. In typical Biggart fashion they now have a throwing building, a glazing building, and a kiln yard with 3 kilns. His pottery is designed primarily for plants and can be seen at most of the local orchid shows and at the nursery. He would love to talk orchids and pottery with anyone interested!

James RoseWe are happy to welcome James Rose from Cal Orchid in Santa Barbara back to our society. James is a very experienced orchid nurseryman who readily shares his wealth of orchid knowledge with novices and experienced growers alike. James will be speaking on outdoor growing orchid species from Mexico. He will discuss where they come from, how to grow them, and provide a few illustrations of their progeny. This is a new talk with a fresh perspective.

James’s visit is being co-sponsored with SDCOS. He will be giving a talk on Tuesday evening, Oct. 4 on Orchids from Madagascar and all are welcome to attend the presentation at 6:30 pm in Balboa Park. James also will be providing plant tables for both societies.

James attended University of Cal Santa Barbara as an anthropology major. In 1971, he began working at Santa Barbara Orchid Estate. After 16 years there, and becoming manager, he left to establish his own nursery with his wife, Lauris. In 1987, they purchased Orchids By Rowe, a 2 acre cymbidium nursery a mere 2 blocks from the Pacific Ocean. After only a few years, James and Lauris totally redesigned the former cymbidium cut flower range to what is now, after 29 years, a world famous orchid nursery that provides one of the largest varieties of orchid species and hybrids in the U.S. Read more »

Marni Turkel: Photo by John VarigosWe are delighted to welcome Marni Turkel to our society. Marni will speak on "Coelygyne, Dendrochilum and Related Genera". Her talk will cover the 9 horticulturally significant genera of the 21 or so that comprise the subtribe Coelogyninae. These include not only Coelogyne and Dendrochilum, but also Pleione, Chelonistele, Pholidota and others. She will discuss the diversity within the different genera, show both common and rarely seen species as well as discuss their habitats and how they relate to cultural needs.

Marni Turkel is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area and has been growing orchids since 1980. She grows in three greenhouses in Santa Rosa with approximately 1000 sq. ft. of growing space. Her main interest is in cool-growing miniature species but plenty of larger plants have crept into the collection as well. Marni has been a contributor to Orchids magazine with her series called 'Well Worth the Space' and 'Give It a Rest'. Her articles have been translated into Dutch, German, Portuguese and Swedish for international publication. Photographs of her plants have been feature in articles noted orchid publications including Orchids Magazine, Orchid Digest, Richardiana, The Orchid Review, and The Australian Orchid Review. For the last few years she has been sharing her photographs and knowledge on orchidsforum.com. Read more »